The Madoff Dilemma

We must find out ways to make accounting numbers more verifiable and access to information easier readily available in to prevent such nexus of fund managers and auditors.The auditors must be brought to book for hoaxing the public. Madoff and his likes can be stopped only with stricter and quicker punishment.

Moij Siddiqi,Bangladesh

The first paragraph of the SEC???s Introduction states, ???The mission of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is to protect investors ???..

Will someone, please, tell me what they have done to protect the people that invested with the likes of Bayou Group LLC and Bernard L. Madoff???s stuff?

The SEC regulators have access to, are supposed to avail themselves of and act on information that investors would be considered insiders and prosecuted for having such access and information and acting on it. These are very regulators that are supposed to be our insiders and protect our interests but do not seem to expose or regulate the crooks. The SEC has been absolutely negligent and likely implicated in the Madoff fraud. Apparently they have not bothered to monitor Madoff???s activities and have even resisted investigating the many complaints received. Now they want to further perpetuate the fraud by ducking out and have the Bankruptcy Court take over to clean up this mess.

The Bankruptcy Court, looking for money to firstly fund the exorbitant lawyer???s fees, then huge accountant???s fees and then possibly court costs that will occur, will now punish the easily targeted honest investors that have acted in good faith and have been forced to comply with edicts imposed by the SEC regulators.

In their zeal to bring monies into the Bankruptcy Court, I would hope the Court will look to the negligent SEC regulators as individuals and to the agency as a whole as being financially liable. I don???t really think the Court has the guts to do it but if they did it would be much more appropriate than trying to rob investors that had the good sense realize there might be something wrong and get out before the collapse.

The biggest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world is what ???Social Security??? has become. When it finally goes broke, will the trustee in bankruptcy try to recover our Social Security benefits?

TOtal failure of all US institutions. Men in Suits and suites. FAILURE. How do u detect PARTIAL Ponzi schemes? Some get gains, some get losses.! How to sleuth THAT, even with a legitimate investing strategy, fake gains can be allotted to your friends, everyone else gtets the losses out of the same portfolio.

who will invest with these ELITES again...I'm sure many are still lining up!

If you can???t assume responsibility for how your money is being invested, you have no business investing, or speculating. And if you invest with anyone who claims to never lose money, reports consistent earnings for 20 years despite exceedingly volatile markets, will not explain his strategy, refuses to disclose even the most basic information or discuss potential risks, you're not investing, you???re not even speculating, you???re basically throwing your money away.
If there's one thing we should take away from this scandal, it's to take control of your own financial dealings, be wary of anything you don't fully understand and, if you are asking financial advice, make sure you understand what motivates their advice. The so-called ???experts??? like financial advisors, brokers and accountants are not infallible. Neither are your well-meaning friends. Do your homework!

This comment was posted by Jose Roncal, co-author of "The Big Gamble: Are you investing or speculating?" - For more information, visit www.financialspeculation.com

Funny- in a warped way, the guy did not lie. He promised certain returns and he paid them. The people who gave him the money never did their homework to make sure that their investment was going to be held securely. If they wanted guarantees their money was going to be there, then they should have put it in bonds, tbills or a CD. They knew they were taking a risk, but they salivated over getting 10 percent a year. They were so captivated by this return, they never looked any further.

While I find what Madoff did to be reprehensible- his own sons had money in the fund- and I feel for the people who should have been helped by the endowments he wiped out, I have no pitty for the "victims" of this scam. These people have access to funds and investments with substantial returns that we "ordinary folk" don't even know about. That they got greedy and got their hands slapped but good might teach them that they are subject to the same laws of risk and return as the rest of us. You want big returns; you have to run the real risk of losing big chunks of your investment. Them's the breaks!

Bernie, have the courage to uncover what's left, then take your own life in the most painful way possible. That's the very least you owe us.

NO ONE WANTED TO ???KNOW???

From New York to Geneva, corruption is rampant and complex on Wall Street.
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http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/12/is-madoff-really-anomaly.html
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MADOFF IS NOT AN ANOMALY

These Greedy Zionist Pig's will find a way for the Gentiles to pay for their Greed.

The question should be how to spot an honest man on Wall Street. They are the ones who are hard to spot.

You spot a Wall Street crook the same way you spot a lousy, lying scientist. When a scientist publishes perfect result after perfect result, never having a bad experiment, never making a mistake, it is a red flag that he is making it up.

Same for investments. Nothing is perfect. Nobody is that good. The real world doesn't work that way.

Are the auditing firms running the shredders again?

What I want to know is: Why is SIPC bailing out Madoff's investors? If you look at the other broker-dealer/ advisory scams that were pulled off over the past 10yrs, you will find that the SIPC never got involved. I think this whole scam impacted the Jewish community and Jewish orgaizations so SIPC felt the need to step in.

A 'don't ask, don't tell' culture oozes through Wall Street. It allows fraud on the Madoff scale to continue despite all the telltale signs that are suddenly so obvious afterwards. It allows Investment Banks to keep huge liabilities off the books, and to report profits only on what they decide to keep on the books. It encourages all kind of tax avoidance schemes, and offshore entities beyond the inspection of audits or examiners. It includes all manner of inside information used to get an edge on other investors, especially the suckers who still think the markets cannot be rigged or manipulated. Bernie knew all this and used it and was applauded by his clients for his astonishing ability to always beat the market. Nobody seemed to mind as the returns kept rolling in. Nobody ever considered that cheating is a great hedge until you get caught. The Wall Street conspiracy of silence made millions for Bernie. For now it is over but the scams will go on because Wall Street loves its secretive ways. See no evil until it slaps you in the face; then claim you knew something was wrong all along. Blame law enforcement for not being able to outsmart a crook like Madoff. Don't look in the mirror and say to yourself: I should have said something a long time ago.

The checks and balances, due diligence went out the window with a whole bunch of stuff. Regulation and enforcement, do your own homework, if it looks too good to be true it probably is, etc. etc. Ponzi schemes work when regulators don't regulate and investigators don't investigate. These schemes also work well with a minimum of investors and internal people, so that the chance of an early investor talking to a late investor are minimized. Low internal people minimizes the damage of an angry employee getting back by telling the Feds. The nice thing about deregulation is that you don't have to cook the books if no one looks at the books, just the bottom line.

Well, let's see now. Lo blows the whistle on the crook who gives the same Ponzi interest each month. Easy, from now on, the crook will try to look legit by following the ups and downs of the market. So, before Lo, you could catch a crook by his regular interest. Now, after Lo, you can catch him if his interest payments look normal. That means that they're now all crooks, so your best deal is to not give them any of your money. Put it in T Bills, which, by the way, are paying the same one half per cent every month now. Hmmmm.

Some very smart people got very badly mesed up by this man and, in many cases, it wasn't their fault. In some cases, however, lit was. There ought to be some element of fear as well as greed in one's calculations about life.

What happened to the "old systems" of "Checks and Balances"? Seems to be, a few people may have been paid off along the way? When does somebody or person have enough money? (50B, probably more)...Money, the roots of many evils...Madoff spent more money then many countries do in a year, how did Madoff do it without it being noticed? What a waste...

All I want is for the credit card companies to cut my debt and interest rate to at least 60%. I cannot afford to pay now. My job is at risk. I cannot afford to keep the heat on in my home. The cost of food has not come down like gas prices. My next move is to walk away from the debt and take my chances on bankruptcy.